Contributors 2015

Helena works as a freelance creative coach, communication consultant and writer. Her ultimate source of inspiration in everything she does: Encounters. Snapshots. Discoveries. Ordinary and exceptional ones. At home and throughout the world. That’s her space for creativity, and that’s also what inspired her first book: they would rock – 59 days in Iran.

PLY is a Hamburg Interior Studio for furniture, light and interior design in the heart of Altona/Ottensen. The showroom plyground in Hohenesch 68 is located in a former fish smoke house and displays prewar vintage originals along with modern classics. There are works from Jean Prouvé, Alvar Aaalto, Egon Eiermann, Friso Kramer and Ilmari Tapiovaara as well as own designs like the PLY Stool and the Kandem 831 PLY Lamp.

In Kleine Rainstr. 44a PLY has its design studio and the showroom for light objects. PLY is open for private and commercial customers. When PLY is working with professional clients, we equip companies and take care of furnishing processes complete from concept to realisation.

PLY thinks of themselves as independent planners, advisers and furnishers who fit and equip functionally and individually using both vintage and newly manufactured objects and lights. David is the founder and inspirator of PLY who established his studio for unestablished furniture in 2010.

Franziska has worked in Hamburg as a business and brand strategist over the last eight years with a focus on FMCG, retail, media, transport, pharma, and energy.

After graduating from the University of Applied Science Pforzheim with a Diploma in business, marketing and communications, Franziska Luh launched her career in strategic planning at the agency Philipp und Keuntje in Hamburg. Her clients included Jägermeister, German Yellow Pages, Audi, and Germany’s leading discount energy brand. In 2008 she expanded her international portfolio and attended the Miami Ad School, where she was trained in new planning techniques. Her clients included Ford, Vinyard Vines, and JetBlue Airways.

Finally, before co-founding Katalysten, Franziska Luh worked with the international agency Scholz & Friends for five years strategically advising major clients, such as Muller, Tchibo, as well as project-based managing brand building and development, and driving innovation for various Blue Chip companies.

Martin is involved in several tech-related events and Head of Development at Ubilabs. His company develops applications based on the Google Maps API for an international client base. He is famous for hacking artsy code that bends the limits of programming. Martin is an active speaker at conferences and loves to share the latest insights with the community.

Arne works as Director of Mobile Product at XING, the leading professional social network in the German speaking markets. Currently his role includes guiding the company’s shift to a distributed mobile product development. Arne is co-organizer of Product Tank Hamburg, a networking event for local product people and has been playing bass in Hamburg bands Jullander and Pau for 20 years. He’s married and has two daughters.

Inga Wellmann

Head of Department Arts and Creative IndustriesMinistry of Culture, Hamburg

Christophe founded precious design studio 10 years ago together with friends and enjoys every single day since then, no matter if delight or struggle crosses their road. precious helps innovators shape meaningful products and services that people love to interact with. Before that, heworked at some design agencies, ran a record label and released his ownelectronic music. He loves his two kids and their mother more than anything else and is on a that permanent mission to find the perfect work-life blend.

Carsten trained as a graphic designer, long before the advent of computers. He worked his way up from his dream agency, Ogilvy & Mather, in the 1980s, joined one of Germany’s first creative agencies, Scholz & Friends, worked at Jones Knowles Ritchie, London, and finally founded his own design agency ‘Mutter’ in 1995. He is the Managing Director and Head Designer at Mutter in one person.

Besides participating in a couple of mainly international projects related to sustainable design, Carsten Buck started a partnership with Prof. Dr. Michael Braungart, the founder of the Cradle to Cradle principle. The Cradle to Cradle concept calls for the transformation of the industry through ecologically intelligent design.

The aim is to improve the quality of products so that they have an improved consumer quality and are of both economic and ecological benefit. In June 2011 Buck successfully completed the respective Cradle to Cradle training at EPEA in Hamburg and is now one of the first German designers which are certified Cradle to Cradle Design Consultant and officially authorized by Prof. Dr. Michael Braungart to conduct Cradle to Cradle projects in cooperation with EPEA. www.mutter.de, www.carsten-buck.de

Steffan Heuer

US Correspondent for brand eins, co-author of Fake it - Your Guide to Digital Self Defense.

Steffan Heuer has been covering technology and innovation at the messy intersection of economics, culture, and social change for almost two decades, racking up about 80,000 air miles a year. He is the U.S. Correspondent for the German business magazine brand eins and lives in San Francisco. His work has appeared in The Economist, Monocle and the MIT Tech Review. Steffan’s book “Fake It! Your Guide to Digital Self-Defense,” which he co-authored with Danish journalist Pernille Tranberg, has been published in four languages and is currently on its third print run in Germany (http://fakeit.info).

Steffan studied history and economics at the FU Berlin and Tulane University, New Orleans. He’s also a graduate of the Columbia Journalism School in New York. He tweets at @sheuer and — depending on your language preferences — at @FakeIt_Book and @datenschuetzen.

Harald is passionate about the Future of Mobility, Smart Cities & Internet of Things and its opportunities for society, brands and entrepreneurs. He created the MLOVE ConFestival and M Forum as an inspiring global event series that brings together thought leaders and startups in a interactive format.

Harald is a Co-Founder of Smaato – a pioneering mobile advertising company headquartered in San Francisco where he was CMO for 7 years. Prior, he was leading award-winning digital agencies in Europe and the USA – including PixelPark in New York.

He is a frequent speaker on futurism, innovation & mobile and was named a “Top 50 CMO on Twitter” by Social Media Marketing Magazine, a “Marketing Maven” by NBC and a “NEXT 100 Top Influencer of the Digital Industry” by German magazine Wirtschaftswoche. Harald has spoken at TEDxHongkong, DLD, Next, Social Media Week, MMA Forum and various corporate events incl. Volkswagen, E-Plus, Munich Re and Singularity University. He lives in Hamburg, loves photography & travel and attended Singularity University.

Jens is Managing Partner of Ubilabs GmbH, a company developing interactive map solutions for clients such as Merian, Mare, Xing, BMW and others. Ubilabs is Google GEO Enterprise Partner since 2011.

With their projects Ubilabs are also represented at art festivals and industry platforms such as transmediale Berlin, Hamburger Architektursommer or CEBIT Hannover. Jens is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences and contributor to publications on information society, interactive storytelling and mobility. Ubilabs maintains cooperations with media and design schools in Kiel, Lübeck and Bergen (Norway).

Jeremy is an American designer, entrepreneur, tinkerer, and creative evangelist at Google. Voted as one of the 100 most influential people in the European digital industry, his mission is to elevate creativity in all its forms through inspiration, collaboration and creation

Martin is working in the borderland between culture, digital development and business. He loves to explore what happens when content and design of all kinds are combined with new technological opportunities.

Martin’s background is in music. In the beginning of the century he ran music clubs and festivals and founded a music label. Together with six other indie labels he worked on reinventing how music could be consumed online. He debated the possibilities publicly, did a speaking tour with the founder of The Pirate Bay and spoke in the Swedish parliament.

In recent years, Martin has worked as an researcher at the Swedish organization Media Evolution writing publications on topics such as crowdfunding, collaborative consumption and gamification. For the past five years he’s been the Program Director of the internationally acclaimed conference The Conference. He has also worked as a business developer at the social micropayment service Flattr.com and still runs the music label Songs I Wish I Had Written.

When Simon realized that his musical talent didn't suffice as he had originally thought (boo hoo), he shifted over to the technical side of music. For over six years he worked as a dispatcher, event engineer and FOH engineer at an events service, during which time he was responsible for various duties - from cleaning cables to production management of larger events - he did everything. Simon also ran and helped to develop aprominent venue in Hamburg for over 10 years, where he curated and supervised all kinds of cultural happenings.

At the same time he also had a lectureship at the SAE Institute Hamburg and Berlin with focus on event logistics, live audio engineering, audio drama, production psychology etc. and worked as a freelance executive producer and technician.

Since 2012 Simon has been Head of the Client & Label Care division at finetunes, taking care of the label management and the sales team as well as being the babelfish between users and developers.

finetunes is much more than just another distributer, it offers its licensers additional services, tools and strategies to assess their products and offers comprehensive guidance in the rapidly changing digital world.